CIA head okayed ’05 video distruction

April 16, 2010 at 4:48 pm

A newly released document shows that, although he didn’t okay it in advance, then CIA Director Porter Goss in 2005 approved of the decision to destroy dozens of videotapes of brutal interrogations of terrorism detainees. International Relations Professor Joseph Wippl, a 30-year CIA operation officer, asks if the tapes were destroyed to protect CIA personnel doing the interrogations or to protect the CIA from its Abu Gharib moment?

“Like the Nixon [Watergate] tapes, once done on the record, it cannot be undone without serious repercussions.”